BRIDGE bill contains germ of really good idea

Posted: Wednesday, December 05, 2007

There are some questions to be raised about state House Bill 905, the Building Resourceful Individuals to Develop Georgia's Economy Act, but the legislative proposal also carries the germ of an undeniably good idea.

Pre-filed Monday by Rep. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, the BRIDGE Act is House Speaker Glenn Richardson's proposal to revamp the state's high schools to provide meaningful career and technical education opportunities for students who might not have the interest, the financial wherewithal or the grades to attend college.

The 19-page bill details the processes by which schools, teachers, counselors, parents and businesses would help ninth-grade students decide on a specific plan for their high-school years - a plan that could, happily, be changed should a student's interests and goals change - and ensure that the students get the training they need to be successful.

With regard to technical and career training, the BRIDGE Act calls for high schools around the state to look to four-year colleges, technical colleges, and to apprenticeships at work sites to help give students the training they need. The bill also calls for such training to be focused on careers that are likely to be in high demand, and in areas for which employment opportunities exist within the area served by the school.

Of course, the first question that comes to mind with regard to the ambitious BRIDGE Act is how much it's going to cost. Earlier this year, Richardson indicated that he's willing to propose a $20 million outlay for the initiative. That's a considerable sum, but when it's spread across 182 school systems, many with more than one high school, it's doubtful that $20 million would be enough for the program. Even if the money went to just 182 high schools, it would mean just $110,000 per school, hardly enough to hire a couple of instructors or to upgrade or establish a laboratory or two.

There are also a couple of philosophical questions connected to the BRIDGE proposal. Is it wise, for example, for a ninth-grader - even with parental help and assistance from counselors - to be making what could be definitive decisions about his or her future? And, on a related note, is it wise to trust counselors - and, in some cases, even parents - to be particularly effective at translating a student's strengths and weaknesses into a specific academic program?

Those issues aside, however, there is one aspect of House Bill 905 that deserves special attention from legislators.

Part of the BRIDGE Act would require school systems in areas where local technical schools and colleges don't have the capacity to help meet the legislation's goals to establish "comprehensive high schools with high quality focused programs of study for high demand fields ... ."

More importantly, though - and this is what should get attention from lawmakers - the bill would allow local school systems to meet the requirement for establishing comprehensive high schools by doing so in partnership with other school systems.

Undoubtedly, such a regional approach would make fiscal sense for many, if not all, of the state's numerous small county and municipal school systems which, in some instances, currently are supplying duplicative services within mere miles of each other.

Of course, it's easy to understand why that is so. Each of those small school systems has a history that likely is cherished by residents of the communities they serve. Sadly, however, those school systems are reliant on property taxes for a significant portion of their funding, and those funds simply aren't sufficient for providing the kind of education that young people need to be successful in today's global economy.

Whatever else it does, House Bill 905 suggests one way that state legislators could prompt many of the state's school systems to consider a regional approach to at least one aspect of public education. Whether HB 905 itself becomes law or not, legislators would do well to use it as a springboard for exploring ways to facilitate such regional approaches to public education, approaches which make eminent fiscal sense both for the state and its local school systems.